Surreality
by Jordanna Morgan
Summary: Young mutants ponder life, death, and reality TV.


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Title: Surreality  
**Author:** Jordanna Morgan  
**Author's Email:** librariejordanna.net  
**Archive Rights:** Please request the author's consent.  
**Rating/Warnings:** G.  
**Characters:** Jean, Logan, assorted X-brats.  
**Setting:** General.  
**Summary:** Young mutants ponder life, death, and reality TV.  
**Disclaimer:** I have no rights to either _X-Men_ or "Family Plots". Just having fun with both.  
**Notes:** At first I wasn't sure if I was going to write this—but the day after I had the idea, a friend happened to mention an _MST3K_-style story challenge, and I decided to give it a try.

Surreality

For some unearthly reason, Kitty had taken a liking to "Family Plots".

Sitting on the couch in the TV room, Jean watched Rick and Melissa have an argument, and was forced to admit the show had become a sort of guilty pleasure. It was nice to see that hers wasn't the only certifiably insane workplace in the known universe. Besides, on top of this, Kitty was also interested in the detective shows on Court TV. The girl might have a promising future in forensic pathology, at this rate.

They weren't alone. In a corner of the room, Logan was sitting and reading a book—a task his exceptional night vision seemed to handle just fine, although the only light in the room came from the television screen. At Scott's decree, he was trying to absorb some more academic knowledge, to better his skills as a teacher. Jean assumed he was there either because he was that desperate to avoid actually reading, or he just had a thing for Shonna the embalmer. It was those red-headed medical types every time.

Dave had just asked the perennial "Where's Chuck?" when Jean heard a teenage stampede in the hall.

"How about _Pirates of the Caribbean_?"

"We watched that on Saturday."

"_Spiderman_?"

"Bobby froze the DVD."

"Um… oops."

In the midst of this conversation, Bobby, Rogue, and Jubilee burst into the TV room—only to stop in their tracks when they saw what Kitty was watching.

Rogue stared at the funeral service on the screen for all of two seconds before turning to frown at Kitty. "Why do ya like this show? It's creepy."

"Yeah, but it's funny!" Kitty retorted.

Bobby squirmed. "It's about a funeral home. That's not funny."

"Well, no, but a whole family working together is. C'mon, I thought you guys liked reality TV."

Jubilee grimaced and pointed to the screen, where Shonna was casually griping about her father while she embalmed a body. "Handling dead people is, like, no reality of mine."

Very earnestly, Kitty replied, "Neither is camping out on a deserted island with a naked gay guy."

Bobby snickered and added, "Or becoming a famous pop singer."

"Or dating twenty guys and having to narrow it down to one," Rogue giggled.

With an air of wounded dignity, Jubilee folded her arms. "One of these days it will be. Just you wait! I'm gonna be on 'American Idol'. I'll have my own fan club and everything, and then I won't even remember you losers exist."

Ignoring Jubilee's rant, Bobby sat down on the floor beside Kitty and stared thoughtfully into space. "Just imagine if they made a reality show about us."

Kitty burst out laughing. "'Mutant High: The Series'!"

"'On this week's episode,'" Rogue said in her best TV-announcer voice, "'Jubilation gets grounded for starting a fire in the chemistry lab, Bobby accidentally freezes the pool, and Logan breaks Mister Summers' motorcycle.'"

The kids laughed—until a low growl from the shadows in the back of the room gave them a long moment of pause. Jean stifled a chuckle. Logan was still rather sensitive about the 'incident' two weeks before. In fact, the geometry textbook in his hands was part of his punishment.

"Well, hey," Jubilee said at last, picking up the conversation again. "Instead of this 'day in the life' kind of crud, we could do a really _real_ reality show, and start voting people out."

"You'd be the first ta go, Sparky," Rogue retorted. Jubilee stuck out her tongue.

Suddenly, Kitty sat bolt upright. "Hey! How about this—instead of voting people _out_, maybe we could vote somebody _in_. You know, like 'The Apprentice'. We could have a bunch of young mutant candidates compete for a scholarship here."

"_Now_ you're onto something!" Jubilee crowed. "We could pick the next person we have to live with! That would be _so_ much cooler than just getting the latest weirdo dumped on us."

"I wonder if we can find an address for Donald Trump somewhere," Bobby mused, climbing to his feet.

"Or Jeff Probst," Kitty added with a dreamy sigh, rising as well.

The kids went out of the room, chattering about challenges and rewards and immunity. Their voices drifted down the hall. For a moment, the only sound was a commercial on the television—and then a book snapped shut. Logan was looking very intently at Jean.

"Are they serious?"

Jean thought about it for a moment. Then she frowned.

"I'll disconnect the computers. You hide the phone books."

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© 2004 Jordanna Morgan - _send feedback_


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